Without the discovery of the plane’s black box recording devices it may never be known what happened on board the ill-fated flight.

Aviation authorities ordered flight MH192 that had departed Kuala Lumpur at 10.09pm local time to take a holding pattern over the Straits of Malacca to burn up fuel.

Foam is believed to have been spread on the runway for the landing.

MH192 was scheduled to land at Bangalore at 11.35pm Sunday local time.

There were 159 passengers and seven crew on board.

One of the plane’s passengers told reporters he felt lucky to be alive.

“When the plane was about to take off, we could hear three loud bangs. The plane was shaking, especially rows 19 to 23 on the D, E and F side," said the passenger, who wanted to be known as Raymond.

"Oxygen masks dropped but people did not panic. There was a lot of praying but people were calm," he said when asked about the situation in the aircraft that hovered for about three hours above the airport.

Raymond said the pilot did a good job by keeping everyone up to date with the situation.

Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s acting transport minister and the public face of Malaysia’s response to MH370, went to Kuala Lumpur airport to talk with passengers on the flight.

Malaysia Airlines, which is majority-owned by the government in Kuala Lumpur, has suffered a drop in passengers since MH370’s disappearance.